Ashes and Bone (7 page)

Jaymee managed to
finish eating, showering, and dressing by the time Dani returned an hour later.

“What did you find out?” Jaymee met Dani in the entryway, lightheaded with anticipation. The electrified look on Dani’s face only intensified Jaymee’s nerves.

“Nick had a Confederate cartridge case.” She was dancing again. “The kind soldiers carried with them as part of their uniforms. It was empty, but it was used. There’s a bullet fragment lodged in it. A forensics expert might even be able to find blood. Anyway, the piece is definitely real and quite valuable.”

“Where did he get it? Is something like that common?”

“Cartridge cases, yes,” Dani said. “They’re fairly easily faked too. But there are plenty of real ones out there. The bullet hole makes this one unique and worth some money. And I have no idea where he got it. Cage said there was nothing else with it. Get this. It was hidden beneath the driver’s seat. In an envelope duct taped to the seat.”

Jaymee leaned against the wall. “So Nick was deep into the artifact story. And he knew someone was pissed off at him.”

“Oh yeah. I suspect this piece must somehow lead to the person running the fake show.” Dani crossed her arms, mouth in a tight line. “They’re smart, mixing authentic pieces in with replicas.”

“You said you and Lee were hearing more about this. Do you have any idea how it’s done or who might be doing it?”

“Well, there are more and more of these jerks out there. But I’m guessing the person Nick was after is local. Or at least has local ties. And I have a lead.” She smiled, her eyes crinkling around the edges.

“Who?” Jaymee was already searching for her shoes. Her hands and feet wouldn’t stop moving, jerking with the drive to get out and do something useful. Something to bring Nick home.

“Local guy. The historical foundation’s been getting complaints for the past few years about fraudulent objects, and Lee’s heard rumors of this local guy being at the center of it. Nothing like what we’ve seen, but hopefully he’ll give Cage something he can use.”

“I can’t sit around here all day,” Jaymee said. “I keep thinking he’s going to walk through the door. Or I’ll get a call that he’s in the morgue. I need to do something.”

“Well, I have an idea,” Dani said. “You might not like it.”

Jaymee would try anything at this point. “I’m listening.”

“Well, your…” Dani hesitated. “I mean…Penn Gereau is in the Delta Correctional Facility, right?”

“Since last June, yeah.” Jaymee knew where the conversation was going, and no, she didn’t like it. She’d talked to Penn a few times, mostly about finances and the upkeep of the house, and visited once, when she and Dani wanted to ask his permission to put Magnolia House on the Heritage Tour. Their conversations were always to the point. She didn’t want to talk about anything else, and he was decent enough not to push.

“Lee told me a man in Claiborne County was arrested for selling meth a couple of months ago, and police also discovered he was making knock-off items—household antiques. They couldn’t get enough to make a fraud charge stick, but they know he was selling them as authentic. He’s in Delta Correctional too.”

Jaymee headed for the door. “So let’s go see the former Reverend.”

D
elta Correctional was
just east of Fayette, another small town thirty miles east of Roselea. It was a private prison for mostly white-collar offenders. Penn Gereau’s family name and the mitigating circumstances behind the assault he committed were good enough to land him at Delta instead of the Mississippi State Prison. Jaymee spoke to him occasionally on the phone, mostly about the estate he’d left her in charge of. She wasn’t going to work on a real relationship with him until he was released.

And even then, how was she just supposed to forgive and forget that he’d lied to her all of her life? She liked to think she was above holding a grudge—that she could at least partially understand his choices—but most days, she didn’t want to think about them because she wound up angry. So she focused on the positives, like Magnolia and Nick.

“You know,” Jaymee said as she and Dani waited for security to pat them down, “I’m starting to think we’re a bad influence on each other.”

“Why?” Dani raised her arms for the guard. “We’re not doing anything dangerous. We’re looking for information. Cage and Gina are busy with real leads. We’re just…researching.”

“Last time our researching could have landed us in jail,” Jaymee reminded her. Although it would have been worth it. Sneaking into Ironwood had been a blast.

“Yeah, well, we trespassed in my own damned house.” Dani glanced around the gray corridor they were stuck in. Jaymee thought both of them looked as out of place as a gazelle in a lion’s den.

Getting through security was a long process of semi-violation, and the staff seemed distracted by the well-dressed man chatting up one of the guards. He looked generic to Jaymee: standard features, pressed khakis and a polo shirt. But somehow, over his commonness, he possessed a presence commanding attention. He stood tall and distinguished, with crinkled blue eyes and wrinkles that made him look more appealing than the average baby boomer. He spoke quietly to the warden, but the tenor of his voice carried through the corridor, his accent branding him an out-of-towner.

“Who is that?” Dani asked the female guard patting her down, who glared at the man with the patience of a wasp nest that had been disturbed.

“Some ex-senator. Don’t remember his name.”

Dani stepped out of the way as the guard starting checking Jaymee for weapons. When they’d visited before, Jaymee had forgotten to take her multipurpose tool off her key ring. Guards didn’t like that much.

“Is the Delta Correctional Facility the only prison you’ve been to?” Dani asked.

“Not on my list of vacation spots,” Jaymee said. “Not that I’ve really taken any vacations.”

The female security guard snickered. Her skin was the color of caramel-colored coffee, dotted with dark freckles across the bridge of a pert nose. Roundly shaped but with the build of football player instead of a coach potato, the guard wore a pissed off expression Jaymee assumed came naturally.

“Be glad you’re not at State,” the guard drawled. The lyrical way the words rolled off the guard’s tongue made Jaymee think she was from the southern Louisiana parishes and probably Creole.

Of course, Dani cleared that up quickly. “Are you a Creole?”

The guard cocked her head, the handcuffs on her stocky hips clanging. “You a Yankee?”

Dani flushed red. “Sorry. I just think your accent is pretty.”

“Down here, you’re the one with the accent.” The guard pointed to a closed door where another guard waited, looking properly unenthused. The women followed him into a large room with partitions and a phone on each side. Several visitors were already engaged in conversation with prisoners. No one looked up as she and Dani entered.

Jaymee was directed to a chair, and Dani sat next to her. “I always thought private prisons had open visiting rooms. You know, without the whole phone thing.”

“I think that’s only at certain times of the month,” Jaymee said. On the other side of the wall of phones, a metal door slid open. Clad in the standard gray jumpsuit, Penn was led out by a guard. He’d lost weight, and his skin had the ashy look of someone who didn’t get enough sun. At the sight of Jaymee, he hurried to the phone.

“I’m so glad to see you. I heard the storm went through Roselea and was worried. But you,” he said as his eyes swept over her with pride, “you look great.”

She didn’t waste time on pleasantries. “Magnolia House is fine. I’m not. Nick’s missing.”

Penn’s excitement drained from his gaunt face. He sank bank into the chair. “What?”

Jaymee quickly brought Penn up to speed. He listened with the same quiet calm she remembered as a child when he counseled parishioners on their various problems.

“All right,” he said when Jaymee finished. “So the police have their leads. How can I help?”

“A couple of months ago,” Dani said, “Carl Gilbert was arrested for cooking meth. When police raided, they found out he was also fabricating antiques. He’s in here now.”

“I know,” Penn said. “We’re all surprised how that happened. Most of the guys in here are white.”

“Except for you,” Jaymee reminded him, feeling slightly bitter.

“I did what I had to do to protect you,” he said.

“You took revenge.” They’d had this argument before, and now wasn’t the time or place. Not to mention she didn’t have the energy to waste. “But I’m not discussing it right now. Can you get close to Gilbert? See what you can find out?”

“You think he’s involved in this somehow?”

“I doubt it,” Dani said. “But considering Nick was taken in Adams County and not closer to Jackson where he works, we’re thinking the dealers are local. And Gilbert might have some kind of information.”

“It’s worth a shot.” Jaymee refused to let Penn say no. “Maybe he’s part of a bigger network. Or he’s heard about a nosy reporter. Like Dani said, the antiques could be part of a larger corruption. Maybe this Gilbert guy heard of it.”

Penn messed with his short hair. Jaymee remembered when it was thick and full, a beautiful silvery black. He told her on one of her visits he cut it short to battle lice.

“Thing is, girls, I’ve heard some things about Gilbert. About how he got in here. He’s got connections. And I don’t mean family connections like me. I’m talking another kind of family. The kind that uses brute force to get what they want.”

“Are you talking about the mafia?” Dani said. “I thought the mob was a northern thing. Italians, Irish. New York, Boston.”

“There’s another kind of mafia.” Alarm bells rang in Jaymee’s head. “But I’ve heard they’re half legend.”

“Even if that’s true, that means the other half is real, and mean,” Penn said.

“Clue me in,” Dani hissed.

“The Dixie Mafia.” Jaymee spoke softly. Even if she didn’t believe most of what she’d heard, saying the name too loudly seemed like a bad idea. “One of their main guys is believed to have killed Eugene Davis, who had ties to Oswald and the Kennedy assassination. They’re still active, supposedly, but the 70s were their heyday. A lot of them are locked up in Louisiana, right?”

“Yes,” Penn said, keeping his voice low. “But to hear some of the men in here talk, the Dixies have got connections everywhere. And operate on a much bigger level than believed. Mouths started wagging as soon as Gilbert entered. So yeah, he might know all about a larger corruption. But I doubt he’s going to talk about it.”

“So what we’re asking you could be dangerous,” Jaymee said.

Penn stared at her for a long time. She kept her gaze steady, watching the emotion play in his eyes. Guilt always won with Penn. “I don’t care about that. I will do my best, but I can’t promise anything. What kind of stuff did Gilbert replicate?”

“A few basic Civil War things—buttons, buckles,” Dani said. “But also household items, like Victorian snuff boxes, porcelain tea sets. Both of those are really hard to distinguish. Some documents too.”

“I don’t know much about authenticating antiques, but it seems to me you’d need a pretty wide set of skills for those things. You’re talking about several different elements: metal, wood, porcelain, paper,” Penn said. “You really think a man could do that on his own? And how much money are we talking here?”

“It’s possible,” Dani said. “You can learn a lot on the Internet these days. But some of this stuff takes a lot of time to create. So if he was moving large quantities, then I’d say he had help. As for money, depends on who’s buying. You’d be amazed how many people out there are easy to dupe when it comes to this kind of stuff.”

“I bet the site Nick discovered had help,” Jaymee said. “He never mentioned the name, but he said they had an impressive inventory.”

“If he bought all that stuff from the same place, then yes.”

“Two minutes left,” the guard called from his position near the door.

“I’ll see what I can find out. But you girls listen to me.” Penn looked around, dropping his voice lower still. “If Gilbert was making fakes, and he’s part of that organization, then you have to wonder how far their reach into the business of antique faking really is.”

Bitter-tasting anxiety seeped from the pit of Jaymee’s stomach and nearly made her choke. She swallowed reflexively. Going up against a small-time criminal was bad enough. But the mafia?

“That would add a whole new dimension to Nick’s kidnapping,” Dani said.

“Exactly. Be careful, both of you. Tell Cage immediately, please.” He looked at Jaymee with worried eyes, leaning forward so he was close to the glass. For a brief moment, she wished she could take his hand, feel the warmth. Let him know that deep down, she did understand. “I don’t have any right to ask this, but promise me you won’t take any risks.”

“I’m going to do whatever it takes to find Nick.”

“Time’s up,” the guard said.

“We’ll be careful,” Dani promised. “You do the same.”

Penn nodded, his movements reluctant as he was led away. Jaymee’s stomach knotted at the sight of the metal door banging shut.

*     *     *